Imagine, civic activist Dave Meslin said in a 2010 speech, if Nike shoe ads began like this: “Notice of retail purchase opportunity: Our regional distribution centre has received notice that product #372G (running shoe) will be available at certain locations...”

Meslin was making a point about the awfulness of Toronto’s development proposal notices. Black and white, written in dull and confusing technical jargon, the informational posters the city puts up at future building sites seem expressly designed to prevent residents from figuring out what’s going on — and from figuring out how to express their views.

They are now getting a makeover. Four years after Meslin started complaining, the government is finally planning to write and design its notices so that people will actually notice them.

Midtown councillor Josh Matlow, inspired by Meslin, tabled a council motion, to be considered this week, asking chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat to figure out how to make the signs better by next year. Keesmaat, who welcomes the motion, is already working on it.

Matlow wants to see signs that include a “new technology called colour,” better fonts, larger images, plainer language (Meslin mocks planning terms like “podium” and “below grade”), and a warm request to make your thoughts known. The current notices simply refer to a “statutory public meeting” — “which almost makes it sound like you don’t want to have it,” Meslin said.

Better signs, Meslin said, signal a shift in “the way we look at decision-making.” The government, he said, should encourage citizens to participate in the democratic process in between elections — “but it’s impossible to interact with the democratic process if you have no idea what’s actually happening.”

“I like to say it’s almost an act of blaming the victim to use the word ‘apathy’ — because we take all the people who have been almost intentionally excluded out of the process and then throw up our hands and say, ‘Why aren’t they involved?’ People want to participate; people have opinions,” he said.

Keesmaat said Toronto residents are already highly engaged in development decisions: It is not unusual, she said, for a public meeting to draw hundreds of attendees. But she said the city can do better.

“Historically, our images, including the images that we have in reports, have been in professional code, quite frankly. And if we want to create more accessibility, we need plain language both in our words and also in our graphics,” Keesmaat said.

“We want to be a little bit careful, because we don’t want to turn these signs into marketing. That’s the fine line that we’ve been treading; the objective here isn’t to position it like we’re marketing a project. The objective to ensure that we’re making it clear that there is a process underway, and that residents of the city are invited into that process.”

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